The present invention relates to a method for the production of drug particles. More specifically, the invention relates to a method for the production of drug particles having minimal amount of degradation products when obtained by a fluid gas technique process. The invention also relates to such particles when obtained by the method of the invention.
The strategy for the pharmaceutical formulation work of a given drug depends on different factors. Ultimately, these factors emanate from 1) the therapeutic needs, 2) the physical chemical properties of the drugs, and 3) the influence from the biological environment where the formulation will release its contents. Thus, both technical and biopharmaceutical considerations will contribute to a successful therapy.
However, improved drug administration will also be achieved by development of microparticles. The particle size of a poorly soluble drug is often the key role to a beneficial bioavailability. In this development, particles having a high content of active substance, with narrow particle size distribution are desired. These requirements of the micronization process is not always fulfilled, using conventional size-reduction techniques, such as traditional milling or grinding. When subjected to conventional micronization techniques, solids, sensitive to thermal degradation or chemical reactions may be degraded.
The use of supercritical fluids as transport media in the formation of fine powders is a known micronization technique (Krukonis V, AlChE meeting, Paper 140f, November (1984) San Francisco; King M L, Larson K A, Biotechnology Progress, vol. 2, No. 2 (1986) 73-82). One of the advantages using a supercritical fluid as a solvent is that organic solvents can be avoided. Generally, when using supercritical techniques, there are less residual solvents in the produced powder. The operating temperatures are usually low, compared to conventional techniques and the particle size of the produced powder is small, having a narrow distribution. This results in smaller dose variations, when using these microparticles in a pharmaceutical formulation.
There are several techniques today that uses the properties of a supercritical fluid to produce particles. This has been reported in articles which are presented in the prior art section.
Supercritical fluids are generally considered to be chemically inert. This is crucial in the process of producing particles, using supercritical fluid crystallisation techniques. Still, there are some differences among different supercritical fluids in their interaction with other compounds (Prauznitz J M et al., Molecular Thermodynamics of fluid-phase equilibria, 2nd Ed. (1986) Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N. J.; McHugh M, Krukonis V, Supercritical fluid extraction, 2nd Ed. (1994) Chap. 5, Butterworth-Heinemann).
In supercritical fluid technology, the most commonly used fluid is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide may induce undesirable interaction with other components used in the process. It is in place to emphasize that a fluid gas (i.e material in its supercritical and near supercritical state as well as compressed gases), such as carbon dioxide, fluorocarbons, chlorocarbons, fluorochlorocarbons, etc., or mixtures thereof, may interact with any components used in the process, such as solvent(s) or substance(s), which may cause degradation of the final product.
A substance may have water included in the crystal lattice. Using supercritical fluid technology, both substance and water are then needed in the process to get the right crystal modification of the product. Water may produce acidic compound(s) when interacting with for instance carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur hexafluoride. These acid compounds may cause degradation of the substance(s) to be precipitated.
In the presence of an oxidizing agent, such as carbon dioxide (Chang C J, Randolph A D, AlChE Journal., vol. 35, No. 11 (1989) 1876-1882), alcohols may contribute to acidic conditions in an equilibrium reaction.
A fluid gas dissolved in a solvent may produce acidic conditions. Fluid gas as producing acidic conditions are for instance carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, fluorocarbons, chlorocarbons, and fluorochlorocarbons. Solvent producing acidic conditions are for instance alcohols, and water.
There are several techniques used today which are based on supercritical technology. One is known as rapid expansion of supercritical solutions (RESS) and another is known as gas antisolvent precipitation (GAS). In the GAS technique a substance of interest is dissolved in a conventional solvent, whereafter a supercritical fluid such as carbon dioxide is introduced into the solution, leading to rapid expansion of the volume of the solution. As a result, the solvent power decreases dramatically over a short period of time, leading to nucleation and precipitation of particles, [Gallager et al., ACS Symposium series 406, Chap. 22 (1989) 334-354; Tom J W, Debenedetti P G, J. of Aerosol Sci., 22 (1991) 555-584; Debenedetti P G et al., J. Controlled Release, 24 (1993) 27-44; WO 90/03782]. A modification of the GAS process has been developed (WO 95/01221 and WO 96/00610) called the SEDS (solution enhanced dispersion by supercritical fluid) process, which uses the concept of co-introducing a supercritical fluid and a substance in solution or suspension into a particle formation vessel.
Schmitt et al. (Schmitt et al., AlChE Journal, 41 (1995) 2476-2486) describes the use of carbon dioxide and ethane as a supercritical fluid. By injecting a solute solution into an agitated volume of supercritical or near supercritical fluid, rapid crystallisation is reported to be obtained.
Different interactions using different supercritical fluids has been reported in articles: Chang and Randolph (Chang C J, Randolph A D, AlChE J., vol. 35, No. 11 (1989), 1876-1882) who describes the dissolution of xcex2-carotene in supercritical carbon dioxide, supercritical ethane and supercritical ethylene. When using supercritical carbon dioxide as solvent, xcex2-carotene-related epoxide was produced (RESS technique).
EP 322 687 discloses a process wherein a fluid gas is used to obtain a substance/carrier formulation.
Fulton et al. (Fulton J L, Yee G G, Smith R D, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 113 (1991) 8327-8334; Fulton J L, Yee G G, Smith R D, Langmuir, 8 (1992) 337-384) measured the degree of intermolecular hydrogen bonding between solute molecules in different supercritical fluids and in liquid heptane. These articles describes interactions between different supercritical fluids and solute molecules.
WO 97/14407 discloses the use of supercritical ethane for beta-carotene in rapid expansion from supercritical solution.
None of the documents mentioned above discloses use a specific supercritical fluid to protect from degradation a acid labile substance in hydrate form, when applied to a supercritical technique process.
It has now surprisingly been found that, in a fluid gas technique process, an acid labile substance being in hydrate form can be obtained without substantial degradation of the substance.
The novel method according to the invention is based on the finding that by using specific fluid gases in the process, substances which are acid labile and in hydrate form are insignificantly influenced by the process. The result is particles having small amount of degradation products.
An object of the invention is thus to provide a method for preparing drug particles of substances, which are acid labile and in hydrate form and which method does not substantially negatively influence the substance applied to the method.
A further object of the invention is to provide the drug particles of substances, which are acid labile and in hydrate form by use of the method of the invention.
Substances on which the method according to the present invention could be applied are acid labile substances, substances containing crystal water, etc.
An acid labile substance is defined as a substance that is degraded when exposed to an acidic environment.
An acid labile substance is defined in the present specification as a substance that generates degradation products 0.2% or more of the initial weight of the substance when applying CO2 as fluid gas during processing time, typically 8-24 hours, than is generated when applying any of the fluid gases according to the invention.
The substances can be, but are not limited to pharmaceutically active substances such as: hydrates of omeprazole, omeprazole Mg, omeprazole Na (S)-omeprazole, (S)-omeprazole K (dimethanolsolvate), (S)-omeprazole Mg (S)-omeprazole Na, formoterol funarate etc.
The fluid gas techniques used for the formation of the pharmaceutical product, with the active substance(s) are antisolvent techniques such as, but not limited to, SEDS, ASES (aerosol solvent extraction system), SAS (supercritical antisolvent), GAS and PCA (precipitation with compressed fluid antisolvent).
The particular fluid gas used in the method according to the present invention is selected from the group consisting of saturated or unsaturated low molecular weight hydrocarbons, xenon, dimethyl ether and mixtures of these gases. Saturated or unsaturated low molecular weight hydrocarbons are such as having 1-6 carbon atoms, for instance ethane and propane. Particularly preferred is ethane.
The definition of fluid gas in this application includes material in its supercritical and near supercritical state as well as compressed gases.
The method according to the invention of producing particles of substances which are susceptible to degradation is characterized in that it comprises the following steps:
a) Dissolution of the substance or substances in a solvent or a mixture of solvents.
The solvents that can be used are alcohols, ethers, ketones, esters, alkanes, halides etc., or mixtures thereof. Examples of such solvents are methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, n-propanol, methylene chloride, acetone, ethylacetate, ethylether, or mixtures thereof. Also other solvents used as such or in mixtures with these above or in between can be but are not limited to water, ammonia and dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO).
Solvents such as those mentioned above can be added to the process as modifiers or co-solvents. By adding modifiers to the process the physical properties of the fluid gas is altered. For example, this may be done to alter the solubility of substance(s) or its solvent(s) in the fluid gas. If the amount of water used in the process is higher than the maximum amount to obtain a single phase system in the process, a modifier might be needed. The modifier is mixed with the fluid gas, before contacting the solution or co-introduced with the solution just before contact with the fluid gas. As modifiers or co-solvents should be mentioned alcohols, ethers, ketones, esters, alkanes, halides etc., or mixtures thereof Examples of such modifiers or co-solvents are methanol, methylene. chloride, ethylacetate, acetone or any of the others mentioned as examples of solvents above.
The substance is dissolved, dispersed and/or solubilised in a solvent, where water often is one of the components (but not necessarily). If the substance which is susceptible to degradation contains crystal water, the amount of water used as solvent is adjusted to the amount of crystal water needed to crystallise the substance, and to the solubility of water in the fluid gas.
b) Using the fluid gas technique to form the particles comprising one or more substance(s).
Relevant examples are given in the Experimental section.
The product containing the drug substance(s) according to this invention can be used for pharmaceutical purposes such as therapeutic, prophylactic and diagnostic purposes.
Formulations based on this invention can be used for different administrations routes, such as by oral, nasal, rectal, buccal, intraocular, pulmonary, transdemal, parenteral such as intravenous, subcutaneous, intramuscular or as an implantate.
The particles produced by the method of this invention can be used in pharmaceutical formulations in the form of a solid, semisolid, liquid dispersion, or solutions prepared by use of well known pharmaceutical techniques, such as blending, granulation, wet or dry milling, compaction, coating, etc. Further, the formulation may be monolithic, such as tablets, or capsules, or in the form of multiple formulations administrated in a tablet, capsule, or sachets.